Meditation on the Veranda
Bliss—right now:
beneath a blue jade
vine’s beaded bangs,
my sonar function
asleep, the I unstressed,
a syllable glided over.
(Except wherever
in the line it’s placed,
the I is stressed.)
Behind me, a lipstick palm.
In front of me, the early
stages of sunrise,
the world before
highlighter’s applied.
Copyright © 2020 by Carol Moldaw. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 6, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.
“As is often the case, a few things came together in the writing of this poem. One was finding out the name of the palm near where I was sitting, watching the sun rise over the ocean. Another was thinking about consciousness of the self, and how once one is aware of one’s state, even a relaxed state, it is somewhat changed—the observer effect within the self.”
—Carol Moldaw
Carol Moldaw
Carol Moldaw is the author of Beauty Refracted (Four Way Books, 2018), among other books. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.